In honor of the third anniversary of walking the Camino de Santiago I am going to repost my entry from October 11, 2015
500 miles traveled mainly on foot! My journey on the Camino is finished!
I left this morning a little after 8:00. It was just barely light enough to see the ground as I traveled down a tree-lined path. Thankfully there were not a lot of big rocks I had to walk around. It was cloudy but dry this morning.
I walked slowly all morning, savoring the last miles of the Camino. I knew I couldn’t be there for the noon mass so decided to walk slowly. As people passed that recognized me we would stop and give each other a hug.
It started sprinkling late morning but never did rain hard today.
About two miles away from Santiago my feet were really hurting and I needed to sit down for a bit. There was an outdoor restaurant and I thought the building next to it was the inside part of the restaurant so I went inside. It turned out to be a simple little church. As I walked in I felt a wave of emotion flood through me.
I found a pew and sat down. I immediately started crying. Relief, sadness, you name it and I felt them all flood through me. There was a man beside me and when he got up to leave I stood up so he could get out of the pew. He gave me a hug as he left as he could see I was crying.
His hug felt like I was hugged by God.
When I finally stopped crying and came outside he was gone. I walked the rest of the way alone into Santiago. The trail was empty at this point so I got to walk in silence and alone! Perfect for me today!
I saw an Italian restaurant and decided to stop and have lunch before I reached the cathedral.
Inside the restaurant was one of the ladies I had met a day or two ago that rode a horse yesterday. Sitting beside her was the man from the church! We had lunch together and I was able to tell him how much that hug meant to me.
His name is Daniel and he is from Ireland. His wife died of cancer 12 years ago and he raised his four children by himself. The youngest will be starting college soon.
He ended up walking into town with me and we got our Compostela together. He shared his story with me on the walk into town. We shared tears and hugs after we received our Compostela.
It was a beautiful ending to my Camino.
While I was at the church this afternoon I got a deep sense of coming home to myself. Camino complete!